A widely criticised German court verdict on religious circumcision this week aims only to delay the act, not ban it, and is not directed against any faith, a jurist with a leading role in the legal debate said on Friday.
The operation does serious bodily harm and only males old enough to consent to it freely should undergo it, said Holm Putzke, law professor at Passau University in southern Germany.
Using arguments Putzke has published in recent years, a court in the western city of Cologne ruled on Tuesday that the circumcision there of a Muslim boy who suffered post-operative bleeding had violated a German law against causing bodily harm.
Jewish, Muslim, Catholic and Protestant leaders in Germany denounced the ruling as a serious intrusion on religious freedom. Even Germany’s foreign minister spoke out, saying such faith traditions must be allowed in a tolerant modern society.
“I can understand that this verdict has irritated people around the world, but this irritation can be resolved if people look at the reasons for it,” Putzke told Reuters by telephone.
“Nobody wants to ban religious circumcision in Islam and Judaism, not at all,” he said. “It should just be decided by those who undergo it.”
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6 Responses
Circumcision results in 60% less chance of contracting HIV. Many African countries are encouraging circumcision for that reason. This is not “mutilation” but more like vaccination because is it protective and harmless.
What a genius. When the boy grows up and decides he wants to be circumcised, he will not be thanking this professor for subjecting him to a painful and extended recovery, which he could have been spared if it had been done painlessly when he was an infant.
“The operation does serious bodily harm and only males old enough to consent to it freely should undergo it…”
This sounds so stupid – would medical procedures on infants also be forbidden? What sort of “serious bodily harm” occurs in bris milah that doesn’t occur during elective surgeries in infants?
“Using arguments Putzke has published in recent years, a court in the western city of Cologne ruled on Tuesday that the circumcision there of a Muslim boy who suffered post-operative bleeding had violated a German law against causing bodily harm.”
I’m curious how long this law has been around? 70 years?
But in all seriousness, this sounds like such a stupid verdict. Doctors also perform procedures which occasionally and unfortunately do not go right and leave post-operative bleeding. Would the surgeon also have violated the law? Maybe we’re missing some of the details.
First it will be “slightly” delayed then it will be banned. We recall a similar track with slavery in Egypt with Pharoh
#3 M
The issue has to do with western thought about bodily integrity and rights. While parents are responsible to take care of children and, if necessary, have medical/surgical procedures done. However, the argument here is that this is not surgery done for medical reasons. Since it is optional (instead of, for example, surgery to repair a heart defect), the child should make the choice upon reaching adulthood.
Risk/benefit: yes, doctors do perform procedures that don’t go well. However, those procedures, and the risk they entail, have to be balanced. Here, the thought is there is no benefit so thus risk is not acceptable.
[don’t flame! I don’t agree, I just know the logic]
We should give this guy a bris mila and start with his head for MANY reasons which wont be typed here!